pdftk CLI Builder

Interactive PDF toolkit command generator for Linux & Unix terminals

sys:pdftk-java v2.02

lang:bash

ops:25 commands

env:linux-gnu

mod:encrypt · merge · split · forms

status:ready

BUILD v2.02

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pdftk │ bash — interactive command builder

GNU/Linux

Generated Command

⊞

Merge & Collate

Join multiple PDFs or interleave scanned page scans into one document (citation:3)(citation:7)

⊟

Split & Burst

Extract page ranges or burst a PDF into individual single-page files (citation:3)(citation:7)

↻

Rotate Pages

Rotate individual pages or entire documents by 90, 180, or 270 degrees (citation:3)(citation:7)

🔒

Encrypt & Decrypt

40-bit and 128-bit RC4 encryption with owner/user passwords and granular permissions (citation:7)

📝

Fill PDF Forms

Populate form fields with FDF/XFDF data and flatten interactive forms (citation:3)

💧

Watermark & Stamp

Apply background watermarks or foreground stamps to every page (citation:3)(citation:7)

📊

Metadata & Bookmarks

Report, add, or update PDF metadata, bookmarks, and document info (citation:3)

📎

File Attachments

Embed file attachments into a PDF or unpack existing attachments (citation:3)

🔧

Repair & Compress

Fix corrupted XREF tables, uncompress/recompress page streams for editing (citation:3)(citation:7)

📋

Generate FDF Stencils

Extract form field definitions into FDF data stencils from any PDF form (citation:3)

Debian / Ubuntu

Install the modern pdftk-java package directly from the official repositories. Requires Java JRE which will be pulled in automatically (citation:6)(citation:11).

$sudo apt install pdftk-java

Also available: sudo apt install pdftk on older releases. Ubuntu 22.04+ ships pdftk-java (citation:6).

RHEL / CentOS / Rocky

On RHEL 8+ and Rocky Linux, pdftk-java is available in EPEL repositories. For CentOS 7, a community RPM bundles the required libgcj library (citation:9)(citation:10).

$sudo dnf install pdftk-java

CentOS 7 fallback: sudo yum localinstall https://www.linuxglobal.com/static/blog/pdftk-2.02-1.el7.x86_64.rpm (citation:9)

Fedora 33+

Fedora 33 and later include pdftk-java in the default repositories (citation:11).

$sudo dnf install pdftk-java

Arch Linux

Available from the Arch User Repository (AUR) (citation:11).

$yay -S pdftk-java

openSUSE

Install via zypper package manager (citation:11).

$sudo zypper install pdftk-java

macOS (Homebrew)

Install via Homebrew on macOS.

$brew install pdftk-java

Windows

Download the official PDFtk Server installer for Windows 10/11 from pdflabs.com (citation:3)(citation:4).

> Download from pdflabs.com

After install, open cmd and type pdftk to verify. Includes PDFtk Free GUI (citation:4).

Universal (Native Binary)

Download a standalone native-image binary — no Java runtime needed. Works on any x86_64 Linux system (citation:10).

$ wget https://gitlab.com/pdftk-java/pdftk/-/jobs/.../pdftk $ chmod +x pdftk

Check gitlab.com/pdftk-java/pdftk for latest build artifacts (citation:10).

Build from Source

Compile pdftk from source using gcc/gcj. Supports Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Slackware, SuSE, Solaris, HP-UX (citation:3).

$ unzip pdftk-2.02-src.zip $ cd pdftk $ make -f Makefile.Debian

Requires gcc/gcj 3.4.5+. Review the Makefile for your platform and confirm TOOLPATH and VERSUFF (citation:3).

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